"How Are They Doing?": Ballard on Amazon Prime, Madea's Destination Wedding on Netflix & Too Much on Netflix
The Bosch franchise could be the most lucrative library series among streaming originals if it was ever released into the wild. Also, Lena Dunham returns but nobody cares.
Ballard on Amazon Prime: The Bosch TV universe, based on the crime novels of Michael Connelly, does not get the credit it deserves. It was one of the first streaming originals, launching in 2015, and has thus far generated 11 seasons / 108 episodes of television: Bosch 7 seasons / 68 eps, Bosch: Legacy 3 / 30, and the new series Ballard starring Maggie Q 1 / 10.
This is all in a format that is the closest to a traditional Broadcast procedural franchise with library value among all streaming original series. The show is a bit more serialized than your typical linear crime drama but those 108 eps should be far more repeatable across the TV landscape than other SVOD series based on the oodles of data available about what works as a “repeat”.
No matter how much is written about how streaming has changed television, the truth is that studio economics still rely on producing enough programs that are successful enough and designed to run repeatedly for many years. The dominance of SVOD originals over the last ten years will eventually upend that model - with no clear way to replace those dollars because SVOD series a) do not generate enough episodes, b) are too serialized and c) are too associated with the home streamer to have much library value after the initial drop.
This is why no streaming original has yet become a library staple on competitive streamers or on linear. The established Broadcast staples like Friends, Law & Order, Big Bang, Gunsmoke, and NCIS will have to continue to do heavy lifting for years, even decades, to come because streaming originals are supposed to be daring, provocative and serialized to get subscribers, not “boring” like a case-of-the-week or a multi-cam sitcom. But those daring formats do not generate repeat viewership.
I mention L&O and NCIS above because procedural franchises are one of the most reliable ways for a studio to mint money from their ultimates since, once a franchise gains some traction, viewers will watch most spin-offs or extensions.
Because Bosch is the only streaming franchise that has the structural elements akin to those programs such as compelling law-enforcement heroes, clever mysteries and an eventual reveal of whodunnit, that franchise should be able to breakout of its Amazon walled garden and be a decent performer or better on other platforms over the next 5-10+ years.
One could make a case the Taylor Sheridan universe is also in this category but it is not the same for three reasons: 1) It was built off the most successful title Yellowstone which is a linear original, 2) all other series only have one or two seasons so far, except for Mayor of Kingstown at three, 3) they are not really spin-offs in one universe like NCIS or Law & Order - they are distinct series that all happen to come from the same creator. 1883, 1923 cannot become library evergreens as they are only 8 and 16 episodes respectively. Tulsa King, Lioness or Landman could be if they get to 4-5 seasons which is still a question mark and years away.
So why are we not seeing Bosch outside of Amazon?
A likely barrier may be that Prime would rather use the show to draw in procedural subscribers and/or keep them engaged then spread the wealth to competitors - even if it is all margin at that point. But that margin is a drop in the bucket for a company with a market cap of $2.37T.
A second barrier is that the data on the show is mixed, again per Luminate.
A weakness in the performance data is the initial result for Ballard, which was released as a binge last week. For the first seven days of viewing the show is low compared to the same measurement period of other recent Amazon TV seasons with 2.4M viewers as illustrated below.
Another negative is that the final season of Bosch: Legacy (S3), released on Prime in March 2025 as a binge, ranks #36 out of all Amazon original TV seasons for 2025TD in terms of minutes viewed, well behind even some library seasons of older shows such as Goliath, Jack Ryan and Summer I Turned Pretty.
A brighter spot in the data is that over the last 3.5 years, Jan 2022 -June 2025, Bosch ranks #6 among all series on Amazon with 10.8B minutes watched. An encouraging but not necessarily outstanding indicator.
Despite these limitations Bosch stands out in the first decade of streaming as the lone franchise that could eventually provide long term value to its profit participants once the industry decides how it wants to leverage all of these hours of scripted content that, up until now, have not demonstrated any long-tail value.
Source: Luminate
Madea’s Destination Wedding on Netflix: Speaking of franchises the 13th movie in Tyler Perry’s empire-building franchise - which is now 26 years old looking back to the characters’ debut on stage in 1999 - has performed well globally in its first weekend on Netflix. The film has garnered 19M viewers worldwide which puts it #10 YTD among all Netflix movies for launch weekend as visualized in the first chart below.
This is the second Madea film for Netflix following 2022’s A Madea Homecoming and one of seven original films directed by Tyler Perry for the service overall. Hours-viewed data is available for six of them and, as shown in the second chart, Madea’s Destination Wedding is the #2 title among those six for initial weekend viewing and slightly ahead of Homecoming.
There is not chart for this but in the U.S. according to Luminate the title has been the #1 movie in all of streaming since release on Friday 7/11 with 10.4M views / 1.1B minutes — 4x over the #2 title (German thriller Brick).
Conclusion: Madea is going strong!
Source: Luminate
Too Much On Netflix: After making cultural waves with her polarizing HBO series Girls (I was a fan) Lena Dunham has returned with a new rom-com sitcom starring Hacks’ hilarious Megan Stalter (Kayla) that was released on Thursday 7/10. Dunham is the showrunner but also a supporting player. However this time, instead of waves, it’s a pebble’s skip as few people are watching. Here’s the proof:
The series did not make the global top 10 in Netflix’s data release from last week, a massive red flag. A new scripted series with this pedigree that cannot crack the top 10 is a misfire. In fact it is really difficult for a new Netflix scripted original not to make the top 10 in its launch weekend
When narrowing down that Netflix first-party data to the U.S. only it still does not make the top 10, and the U.S. should contain her biggest fan base.
The title made the bottom of the top 10 in these countries only: Croatia, Denmark, Estonia, Iceland, Israel, Malta, Norway and the UK (where it is set).
Per Luminate, in the U.S. it has averaged 594K viewers / 232M minutes in the first six days which puts it #6 since release among Netflix series. It is behind such shows as Under A Dark Sun, a French mystery; The Gringo Hunters, a Mexican crime drama; and Squid Game S3 which is now in its third week.
Conclusion: Too Much has very narrow appeal.
I watched most of the first episode and found it trying to hard to be a rom-com and a bit dull.